Katusha given WorldTour License by CAS

So CAS got it right and upheld Katusha's WorldTour/ProTour license. They didn't release their exact reasoning, but said something along the lines of "Our findings were not the same as the UCIs and Katusha will be reinstated as a WorldTour team."

I think their research into the topic probably went something like "Not qualified to be in the WorldTour?...LEt's see here...Ok, Number One ranked rider according to WorldTour points, A super domestique who competes and wins such stage races as Suisse and the Dauphine while finishing in the top 10 in Grand Tours. A pretty solid contingent of riders for the classics...Yeah, reinstate these guys."

Seriously, of all the "dubious" teams in the WorldTour, Katusha makes just about zero sense for exclusion.

The bright side of this is that hopefully now we get to see a rematch in this upcoming mountainous Tour of what we saw in the Vuelta. Contador, Rodriguez, Valverde, Froome and with the added flavor of the Schlecks (Or just Andy?), Cadel Evans and Tejay,Vincenzo Nibali perhaps we'll see more of Pierre Rolland again. Stalwarts like Ivan Basso will probably be there, but may or may not be able to hang anymore. I'll be interested to see what becomes of SKY's Colombian duo Sergio Henao and Rigoberto Uran on such a mountainous course, could one or both of them become part of a leadership battle there? I'll also be interested to see if Romain Feillu can climb again like we saw him in his Tour debut a couple of years ago along with Rafael Valls. Climbers seem to have a way of showing up and looking like future world killers and then never being heard from again.

Bottom line, the Tour will be better for the inclusion of Katusha and Joaquim Rodriguez along with Dani Moreno

The easiest way to resolve the new problem of having 19 world tour teams is to simply have 19 world tour teams this year. Knowing UCI, they will make a mash of this. Their next likely move will be to strip Saxo/Tinkoff of their license for this year. This would potentially rob the fans of seeing Contador against Rodriguez at the Tour.

Today on cyclingnews it was reported that the UCI has shockingly decided to keep 19 WorldTour teams instead of dropping one so they can stay at 18 teams. Now, lets see what RCS and ASO have to say about that.

What RCS and ASO should do: Agree that since they agreed to be part of the WorldTour/ProTour they will accept the 19 teams as automatic entries and scale back the number of wildcard entries they will give.

What RCS and ASO have an 80% chance of doing: Crying about it and demanding that they only have to admit 18 teams because "everyone" "wants" to see local teams Terrifico Olive Oil in the Giro and Francois' Magnifique Baggetts in the Tour. Seriously, both organizations love to flood their races with homegrown teams that are little more than cannon fodder and too often we've ended up with a scenario where a potential GT contender has been snubbed in favor of some local team